It beggars belief that centuries after Britain committed mind-numbing atrocities against the African people, it is yet to offer any meaningful apologies. The former imperialists are yet to either apologise for the transatlantic slave trade which they spearheaded or the blatant stealing of resources in African colonies which they supervised. Despite trafficking more African slaves (at least 4 million people) than any of its cohorts, the best response Britain has been able to afford is to express ‘regret’. After spearheading the greatest atrocity in human history, Britain should be more circumspect than it currently postures but that is not the case.
Over the years, Western countries like Britain have continually made efforts to downplay the atrocities they committed against Africa and the African people. It has made great efforts to possibly sweep them under the carpet and erase them from people’s memories. Rather than offer proper apologies and consolidate genuine reconciliatory moves, it has continued to act like nothing of the magnitude of those heinous crimes was committed.
Britain has conveniently chosen to ignore the fact that things would have been a lot different today in Africa had that gross inhumanity not taken place. Had Britain stayed away from Africa, the menace of organised religion, mind-chaining colonisation and other forms of inhumanity would not have happened. As a matter of fact, the modernised British economy might not have been anywhere close to where it is currently if it didn’t massively benefit from this enslavement and the grossly exploitative years of ‘apprenticed’ labour that it stole and is still stealing from Africa.
In recent times, Britain has begun to make moves aimed at returning some of the artwork it looted from Africa. While that is commendable, it does not qualify to be described as restitution. The questions they should be made to answer is; when will they start repatriating or ‘giving back’ Africa’s stolen raw materials? When will they start paying for the diamonds, gold, coltans, cobalt, bauxites, and other mineral resources they stole from Africans whom they classified as gullible? When will they offer restitutions for the transnational corporations they used to milk Africa of its nature-given resources? These are the real questions.
Read Also: Why Britain Must Return Their Loot From Africa With Apology
Sometime in 1897, British forces invaded Benin, Nigeria, and looted no fewer than 4,000 objects which they took back to their country. They stole so many items which included wooden heads and elephant tusks and then treasures that were collectively known as the Benin Bronzes. Till today, many of these items are still in the custody of those who looted them and they have refused to give their conscience a chance.
Today, there is a growing movement to repatriate these stolen treasures to Africa. This movement is driven by a recognition that these objects belong to their places of origin and that their removal was a form of theft, and sacrilege. It is also fueled by a desire to reconnect with African heritage and restore a sense of dignity and agency to African societies.
These objects ought to be returned because they are of great artistic, religious, cultural, sacred, and economic value. There have been several loud calls for their return from the moment they were looted, often in violent encounters. It is on record that many of their owners fought bloody wars to seek their immediate repatriation.
As many have suggested, Britain has blatantly refused to apologise for the wrongdoings it perpetrated because the case against it which is watertight in ethical and moral terms could offer big legal consequences. Out of fear that apologising could offer new dimensions for reparations, Britain has preferred not to use any language of apology but for how long will they continue to hide? For how long will they continue to sound aloof? Does Britain lack any iota of honour?
The truth remains that Britain owes Africa an apology and subsequent reparations for the human suffering, the mass murder, and the annihilation of intellectual, spiritual, and creative forces that it subjected Africans to which are without parallel, the worst in the history of mankind!
Reparations are a language of apology that Western nations are quite accustomed to because they have been profoundly comfortable receiving them. The Confederates in the US who lost the civil war were paid compensation for the loss of their property. France on the other hand had no issue extorting huge sums of money as reparations from Haiti for many generations over the latter’s audacity in overthrowing slavery in 1804.
Meanwhile, the unfairness of burdening today’s generation with debt arising from their ancestors’ alleged wrongs is a common complaint about reparations that have persisted in several discussions. Britain has been worse of all her fellow imperialists. Under the Slavery Abolition Act, Britain has made poor African nations contribute over £300bn in today’s money which was notoriously paid to Britain’s slave owners for the loss of their human ‘property’! Most of these payments were not completed until as recently as 2015.
What any right-thinking person can decipher from these clearly established patterns is that reparations have been paid to those who profited from African enslavement, rather than those who were enslaved. But on the flip side, the sad truth remains that to this day, no former slave society in the Americas, no former slaves or their descendants, and no African nation, has ever obtained any form of reparations for the inhumanity that was done against them.
The fact that calls for justice and reparations by Africans have for many decades been ignored does not mean it is right and neither does it form any logical basis for it to continue. Africans deserve justice. They deserve to be treated like humans.
Countries like Britain must allow themselves to understand that issues around institutions and reparations around the world have become a global conversation and no degree of threats and blackmail can undermine it. There is no way Britain will be allowed to get away with the unquantifiable torture and cultural destruction it unleashed on African nations or how it systematically enriched itself on the toil, tears, and blood of Africans. Britain must know that there’s no carpet in the world with enough space under it for the legacy of the evils it committed to be swept under.
Britain must be forced to understand the return of stolen treasures to Africa is not just a matter of righting past wrongs. Such a move connotes justice, humanity, restitution, and repentance. It is about ending colonialism and ensuring that those whom were previously subjugated are truly free from the shackles of oppression. Hypocrites like Britain can no longer afford to continually blame African nations for being undeveloped while still being in possession of their identity which was violently taken away from them in exchange for fraudulent organised religion and what was deceptively described as civilisation. The time for the end to the shenanigans is here!
